1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to conveyance apparatus and cleaning apparatus for use in a process of manufacturing a liquid crystal display or the like and a manufacturing method for a liquid crystal display.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are conventionally known conveyance and cleaning apparatuses for use in a manufacturing process of a liquid crystal display or the like and a conventionally known manufacturing method for a liquid crystal display using the above conveyance and cleaning apparatuses.
Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2005-99595 discloses a cleaning apparatus for cleaning terminals exposed and aligned in an end of a display unit. This cleaning apparatus includes: a feeding stage on which a substrate to be fed to the cleaning process is placed; a first substrate holding stage at which a first cleaning process is performed; a second substrate holding stage at which a second cleaning process is performed; an intermediate stage at which the substrate is temporarily placed before being conveyed to a subsequent process; and three substrate holding heads for holding substrates when the substrates are conveyed between the adjacent stages.
The four stages are arranged at equal intervals. The relative positions of the three substrate holding heads are fixed at intervals equal to those between the stages. The three substrate holding heads move without changing the interval in a direction that the four stages are aligned.
In this cleaning apparatus, substrates are individually placed on the feeding stage, first substrate holding stage, and second substrate holding stage. In this state, at the first substrate holding stage, the first cleaning process is performed, and at the second substrate holding stage, the second cleaning process different from the first cleaning process is performed.
Next, the three substrates placed on the feeding stage and first and second substrate holding stages are held by the three substrates holding heads. These three substrates are moved together with the respective three substrates holding stages and then placed on the first and second substrate holding stages and intermediate stage, respectively.
The substrate placed on the intermediate stage is conveyed to a manufacturing apparatus performing the subsequent process, and a new substrate already subjected to a previous process is conveyed to the feeding stage.
However, in the cleaning apparatus of the aforementioned Patent Literature, since all the substrates are conveyed at the same time in the substrate conveyance process, the substrate cleaning processes are not performed during the substrate conveyance process. Accordingly, the substrate conveyance and cleaning processes need to be preformed at different times, thus causing a problem increasing operation time.